01 · The Field
The Board
One shared grid, ten tiles wide and eight deep. Both armies see the same battlefield — what they can't always see is what's standing on it.
The four middle rows are the fog: enemy units inside it are invisible unless adjacent, in a scout's sightline, or freshly revealed. Everything outside the fog is always visible to both sides.
02 · Before The First Move
Deployment
A phase of the match in its own right, not a setup screen.
- Each side places all twelve units itself, anywhere across its own two deployment rows — one unit per tile, any arrangement.
- Deployment is simultaneous and secret: neither side sees the other's army being placed, and there is no moment where one side's arrangement exists and the other's doesn't.
- Randomise fills whatever's left in reserve with a random arrangement, and re-rolls if the tray is already full — it never disables itself. Clear is its opposite, sending placed units back to reserve.
- An arrangement can be revised freely before the battle begins: recall a placed unit, move it, or swap two — nothing is locked in until both sides confirm.
- The Ballista cannot move once the battle starts (see below), so where it deploys is the only tactical decision that piece ever gets.
Where you place your King, your artillery, and your scouts is a bluff in itself — the enemy sees only tiles, never types, until a piece fights or is given away.
03 · The Turn
Turn Structure & Action Points
One pool per player, not per unit. Three points to spend, every turn, on whatever mix of moving, striking, and buying you choose.
Base costsSpending the pool
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| Move (any legal distance, up to the unit's range) | 1 AP |
| Attack | 2 AP |
| Buy a card from the market | 1 AP + its Denarii price |
| Play a card | the card's own AP cost |
A move costs 1 AP however far it runs — distance is limited by the unit's own movement range, never by the pool. Three things raise the price of a single move: fighting in formation (+1), an enemy palisade on the tile you're entering (+1 for the enterer only), and nothing else — the field itself has no difficult ground.
The ceilingMarch orders and the AP cap
Some cards grant extra AP for the turn. The pool can never rise above 6, which leaves five spendable once a card has paid for its own play — enough for two attacks and a move, never a third attack. A card that would push the pool past the cap is refused before anything is spent, with the reason shown up front.
Three filled pips: the AP a turn starts with. Three outlined: the headroom a march order can buy, and no further.
Shape of a moveMovement
- Straight orthogonal lines only — no diagonals — and a move may not pass through or land on an occupied tile.
- Every unit moves 1 tile per move except the fast movers — the Roman Velites and the Barbarian Stalker and War-Chariot — which move up to 3.
- Hand refills to 5 cards automatically at the end of your turn; unspent AP does not carry over.
- Your opening hand is both Move Infantry and Scout Movement, free — the only free grant in the game, and it happens exactly once. After that both are ordinary cards in the market: buy them like anything else, and each purchase is good for one play.
04 · The Clash
Combat
One system, deterministic: whoever's total is higher wins outright. No damage rolls, no variance — the numbers on the two pieces (plus whatever they've earned) decide the fight before it happens.
Attack strength = Rank + Attack bonus + modifiers. Defense strength = Rank + Defense + modifiers. The higher total wins and the loser is removed. A tie destroys both units, unless something below breaks it. Attacks only reach orthogonally adjacent tiles — except the Ballista, which is artillery.
Situational modifiersWhat changes the numbers
+2 attack whenever active. +2 defense too, but only while the unit is still unidentified and standing in the fog.
+1 defense, held until the unit moves. Earned from a card, or automatically after three straight turns spent standing in the fog.
+3 defense — the largest bonus in the game. In exchange the unit moves at most 1 tile, that move costs an extra AP, and any move breaks the formation.
+1 defense for any Roman unit standing beside any other Roman unit. Faction-wide and automatic — the whole legion, not one unit type.
+1 attack for any Barbarian unit striking from inside the fog zone. Testudo's offensive mirror, and just as automatic.
A friendly unit beside a Centurion wins the ties it would otherwise share. If both sides of a tie are inspired, the tie stands and both fall.
Named exceptionsRules that bypass the comparison
- Trample (War-Chariot) — an attack against a rank 4 or lower defender destroys it outright, ignoring every defensive bonus it holds.
- Shield-Breaker (Falxman) — the defender gets no Testudo bonus at all, and if it's dug in or in formation it takes a further −2 defense.
- Death-Blow (Berserker) — if combat kills the Berserker, attacking or defending, its killer dies with it. Artillery is the one clean answer: a Ballista shot has no reprisal.
- Iron Will (Praetorian) — cannot be harmed by artillery, full stop.
05 · The Bar
Morale
Every fallen unit costs its own side morale. Empty the bar and that army routs — one of three ways to lose.
Breaks at 77.1% of the army lost.
Breaks at 75.8% of the army lost — within 1.3 points of Rome's own fraction.
| Fallen unit's rank | Morale lost |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | 1 |
| 3–6 | 2 |
| 7 | 4 |
| 8 | 6 |
| 9 | 10 |
| 10 (the King) | — |
A King's death never reaches the track — it ends the match outright instead (see Victory, below). Each side only ever suffers for its own fallen; nothing is shared.
06 · The End
Victory Conditions
- The King falls. Instant loss for its owner. The Legate is Rome's King, the Chieftain is the Horde's — either one's death ends the match on the spot, with no morale involved.
- Morale break. A side whose morale reaches 0 routs and loses.
- Elimination. A side with no units left on the board loses.
In practice the King and the morale bar decide almost every match — a full army is worth more morale than either bar allows, so elimination is a backstop rather than a route.
07 · What You Can See
Fog of War & Visibility
Two separate questions: can you see a piece is there, and do you know what it is?
PositionSeeing where something stands
- Outside the fog zone, every unit is always visible to both sides.
- Inside the fog, an enemy unit is invisible unless it's orthogonally adjacent to one of your units, inside a scout's sightline, or temporarily revealed by a card.
- This kind of visibility is transient — step away, and the fog swallows the piece again.
IdentityKnowing what something is
- A visible enemy shows only an anonymous marker — faction, no type or rank — until identity is learned.
- Identity is learned permanently the moment a unit fights, or when an intel card names it outright. There is no un-learning it.
- A modifier granted by a second unit (Testudo, Horde, War Cry) is only shown on a token when the viewer can both see and already name whoever is granting it — hidden support never leaks the piece behind it.
ScoutsWho sees further
- Velites & Stalker — see 3 tiles down straight cardinal lines through the fog; a straight-line move reveals the path it takes.
- Equites Decurion — sees 2 tiles in every direction, and ignores the fog's extra movement cost entirely.
Intel is rationed on purpose. Scout Movement (1D, free on your opening hand) and Eagle Eye (3D) both sweep a 3×3 patch of fog for positions only — Eagle Eye alone also permanently identifies whatever's standing on the tile you name. Nothing else hands over identity.
08 · The Purse
Economy
- Every match starts with 5 Denarii.
- Trench income — +1 Denarius at the start of your turn for every one of your units standing inside the fog zone. Holding the middle of the board pays.
- Spoils of War — +3 Denarii the instant you destroy an enemy of rank 7 or higher.
- The market shows 3 face-up cards drawn from your side's pool. Buying costs the card's printed Denarii plus 1 AP; the bought card goes to your discard pile, waiting to be shuffled into the draw pile and drawn.
- Hand cap is 5, refilling automatically at end of turn; the draw pile reshuffles from discard once it empties. Playing a card spends it for good — it never returns to the discard pile, so it can never come back around and be played twice.
Rome and the Horde don't shop from the same stall — see The Market below for what each side can buy.
09 · The Legion
Roman Legion
Rome defends by standing together. High defense, formations, and Testudo reward a line that holds — the trade is slow, deliberate movement.
Rome's King. Its death ends the match instantly, whatever the morale bars say.
Sharpest defense in the game. Immune to artillery entirely — a Ballista can hit it and do nothing.
Any friendly unit beside it wins the ties it would otherwise share in — the Centurion itself never needs to.
A solid rank-7 body in the line. No active ability of its own yet — it fights as an officer, not a specialist.
Sees 2 tiles in every direction and rides through the fog's extra movement cost as if it weren't there.
The Legionary with the weight to hold a flank alone. Benefits from Testudo like every Roman does.
Sound the Advance (1 AP): every friendly unit within 2 tiles gains +1 move for the rest of the turn.
The backbone of the army — two of these ship in every roster. Unremarkable alone, dangerous shoulder to shoulder.
Sees 3 tiles down straight cardinal lines through the fog. Fast and fragile — built to look, not to fight.
The only piece that can see the enemy's buried traps, from adjacency. Demolish (1 AP) clears one it can see. Walks over caltrops unharmed.
Cannot move — where it deploys is where it fights all game. Fires up to 4 tiles at any spotted enemy (never blind into fog): a hit destroys the target outright, rank irrelevant, except the Praetorian's Iron Will. Reloads for a turn after firing, and firing reveals it.
10 · The Horde
Barbarian Horde
The Horde attacks out of the fog. Low armor, high strike bonuses, and Frenzy reward staying hidden until the moment you commit — the trade is a line that can't stand toe to toe in the open.
11 · The Ground Itself
Ground Warfare
Five ways to make a tile dangerous — four of them sprung traps the Horde alone can lay, one a wall only Rome can raise.
A trap never makes a move illegal — it's found by treading on it, or by a Fabri standing beside it. And it never gives itself away: the log says only "the ground is prepared," never which tile.
Wolf-Pit
Destroys the first enemy to tread on it, then the ground is open and safe again.
Screaming Skulls
The first enemy to pass beside it loses 2 morale and is driven back a tile.
Caltrops
Lames the first enemy to cross it for 2 of its owner's turns — it can still fight, but not move. A scout is destroyed outright instead. The Fabri walks through unharmed.
Decoy Camp
A prop in the fog that reads as a real unit. Attacking it destroys it and reveals the attacker's identity.
Palisade
A wall on the tile a unit is standing on. Visible to everyone. Enemies pay +1 AP to step onto it — and the Horde has no way to tear it down.
12 · The Market
Cards
Every side draws from a shared pool of eleven, plus a stall of its own: four Roman cards no Barbarian can buy, and seven Barbarian cards — a Fury deck of aggression plus the four trap cards above — that Rome never sees on its stall. Your opening hand is one Move Infantry and one Scout Movement, handed over free — the only free grant in the game, and it happens exactly once. After that both sit in the common stall below like everything else: bought with Denarii, and good for one play per purchase.
Shared market · both sidesThe common stall
+2 AP this turn — free once, on your opening hand; the cheap tier every paid march order has to beat.
Reveals enemy positions in a 3×3 patch around a tile you name — where they are, never what they are. Free once, on your opening hand.
+3 AP this turn — on its own, this reaches the pool's cap of 6.
Same 3×3 sweep as Scout Movement, plus permanent identity for whatever's standing on the named tile.
One unit gains +2 attack always, and +2 defense while it's still hidden and unidentified in the fog. Costs no AP to play.
One unit digs in: +1 defense, until it next moves.
2 damage to a visible enemy, and it stays revealed. The Praetorian's Iron Will shrugs it off.
+3 defense on one unit — the strongest bonus in the game. It then moves at most 1 tile, that move costs an extra AP, and moving at all breaks the formation.
+3 morale to your own army, capped at your own bar. The only card in the game that puts morale back.
Draw 2 cards — the cheapest card in the market, because what it buys is a shot at the rest.
Your units within 2 tiles of a named tile lose their temporary position reveals. Permanent identity is untouched.
Rome only · the Legion cardsOff the Barbarian stall entirely
One unit raises a wall on its own tile. Enemies pay +1 AP to step there — permanently, and the Horde has no way to tear it down.
A fresh Praetorian joins your back row immediately — the only card in the game that puts a body on the board.
A standing watch over a 2×2 patch of fog, for the rest of the match — positions only, never identity.
An enemy you can see takes the coin: it cannot move or fight on its owner's next turn.
Horde only · the Fury deck & trap cardsOff the Roman stall entirely
Rome draws from 13 possible cards (9 shared + 4 Legion-only); the Horde draws from 16 (9 shared + 7 Fury-deck). Only 3 sit face-up on either stall at once.